Ann Cleeves - Silent Voices

‘She told Jenny Lister about the visits to you,’ Vera went on. ‘But Jenny would have had access to the records anyway. She must have known you were Mattie’s natural mother.’

‘I hated thinking about that,’ Veronica said. ‘I kept expecting Jenny to say something. I thought she might tell Simon. He never knew he had a sister.’

‘Why would she have done that? Confidentiality was important to her.’ Vera paused for a moment, looking at the woman, seemed to give the question more significance than it deserved. ‘Did she tell you she planned to write a book?’

There was a silence. ‘Simon mentioned it one day,’ Veronica said at last. ‘Hannah had told him of her mother’s dream to tell her clients’ stories. As if that were a noble thing to do.’

‘She would have changed names, of course, if a book did get written, but people close to you might have guessed.’ Vera looked directly at the woman opposite. ‘Is that why you were so against the relationship between Hannah and Simon? You thought Jenny might share your secret if she got too close to him.’

‘Elias Jones was my grandson,’ Veronica said. ‘Those women let him die.’

‘You let Patrick die,’ Vera said, her voice quiet and matter-of-fact.

There was a shocked silence; again the sound of the river running high intruded into the house. Ashworth imagined a young child being swept away by it, rolled by the current until his face was under the water, being carried all the way to the sea.

‘That was an accident!’ Veronica cried at last. ‘Not the same at all.’

‘One child given away,’ Vera said, as if Veronica hadn’t spoken, ‘and one child lost. And the child that was left fell for your enemy’s daughter. Is that how you saw it?’

‘Simon could have done better for himself,’ Veronica said. But the reply was automatic and meant nothing.

‘Where did you take Connie Masters?’ Vera demanded.

Veronica ignored the question. It was as if each woman was hardly aware of the other’s words: each was pursuing her own line of thought, a monologue occasionally interrupted. It seemed to Ashworth that it was like watching one of those odd modern plays his wife took him to see at the Live Theatre sometimes. Two characters rambling on without making any connection.

‘Did Matilda really remember those visits?’ Veronica’s question came suddenly from nowhere.

This time Vera did answer. ‘Aye, she talked about them. To Jenny and to Michael Morgan. I went to see him this morning to check I had it right. They meant a lot to her.’

‘How much can she remember?’

‘The social worker bringing her in the car. She talked about a house with its legs in the water. That must be the boathouse by the lake? The place in the picture in your hall? The one at Greenhough.’

‘I always met her there,’ Veronica said. ‘My parents wouldn’t have her in our house. It was still a shameful secret.’ She looked up and asked the most important question. ‘Did Matilda remember me?’

But Vera had already leaped to her feet, almost tripping in her haste. ‘And that’s where you took Connie and the child. God, I have been such a fool! But why? Couldn’t you stand seeing them happy together?’ Then she fell silent and was still, her body twisted towards the woman, like a massive granite sculpture, and when she did speak it was quietly and to herself. ‘No, of course that wasn’t it at all.’

Ashworth was standing too. He wasn’t sure what Vera expected from him. To follow her? To arrest Veronica Eliot? After her final words the inspector had moved surprisingly quickly. She was already in the hall close to the front door, the keys to the Land Rover in her hand.

‘I would never hurt them,’ Veronica called after her. ‘I would never hurt a child.’ But her voice was thin and unconvincing.

Ashworth left her sitting where she was.

Connie lay awake all night, thinking she’d been a fool. How had she allowed herself to be trapped like this? At first she’d thought she’d been so clever. She’d panicked, of course, when she first got the phone call. It had come early in the morning, threatening, insinuating, demanding. The voice disguised, she’d been sure of that. She’d had threatening phone calls following the publicity of Elias’s death. They’d been malicious and mindless, but not like this. Not terrifying. There’d been letters then too. In the end she’d burned them without reading them. The police had said to give the letters to them: it might be possible to prosecute the writers. But Connie hadn’t been able to bear the thought of a stranger seeing them. They might believe the dreadful accusations. This phone call had been more horrible than the letters, and Connie had taken it seriously. She’d known she had to leave Mallow Cottage. She had to take Alice and get away. She couldn’t be seen to be talking to the police.

Then Veronica had arrived. Connie hadn’t been able to tell her the truth, of course. That would have been unthinkable. She could hardly tell this respectable woman that she was running away from the police! She’d said the press were on her back and she needed to disappear for a while. They’d tracked her down, connected her to Jenny Lister’s murder. And Veronica – who had been so hostile, who had poisoned the village women with her stories – had suddenly become helpful. She’d understood the need for utter secrecy. Of course the tabloid press were ruthless and devious. Veronica had read how they searched dustbins and put taps on mobile phones. Veronica said she had a holiday home, not far away. Connie and Alice could stay there for a little while until the police had found the real murderer. It was basic and it had been empty over the winter, but she thought it would do. There was a Calor gas stove and they could stock up on supplies. She’d camped out there when she was a child and had always loved it.

They’d taken Connie’s car to the supermarket to buy food. They couldn’t use Veronica’s because it had no child seat for Alice. Then they’d driven down a grassy track and had arrived at the boathouse. Alice had been enchanted. Any child would be.

‘You’ll have to be very careful close to the water, dear,’ Veronica had said to the little girl, kneeling down so that her face was very close to Alice’s. ‘It’s very deep here, even so near to the shore.’

Then they’d gone inside and thrown open the windows to let in the air, because at that point it still hadn’t started raining. Veronica had found linen in a painted white cupboard and they’d hung the sheets over the deck rail to air.

Inside there was one big room, with two sets of bunks built into the wall. At the end without windows there was a wood-panelled cubicle with a sink and toilet and a candle on a saucer standing on a shelf. Veronica had shown them how the stove worked and they’d cooked sausages for lunch. It had been Veronica’s idea to phone Joe Ashworth, when Connie had shown her how often he’d called.

‘You don’t want them thinking you’ve got something to hide! Really, I would phone him, dear, or they’ll be looking for you all over the county.’

Then she’d driven away in Connie’s car, saying she’d leave it where no reporter would find it. She’d come back in two days’ time with more food. Though by then, of course, the murderer might have been arrested and it would be safe for Connie to move back home.

That first afternoon, after they’d watched Veronica drive away, they’d gone for a walk in the wood and Alice had loved it, balancing on the fallen logs and picking flowers that later they’d put on the windowsill in a chipped enamel mug. They’d come across a cairn made of small white pebbles that looked like a shrine, a small bunch of primroses laid carefully on top. In the evening Alice had fallen asleep immediately in the bottom bunk and Connie had read by the light of a tilley lamp, listening to the rain and imagining herself in her father’s shed at home.